| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: charwoman, and now in addition his sick-nurse. In spite of his
feebleness, Gobseck saw his clients himself as heretofore, and
received sums of money; his affairs had been so simplified, that he
only needed to send his pensioner out now and again on an errand, and
could carry on business in his bed.
"After the treaty, by which France recognized the Haytian Republic,
Gobseck was one of the members of the commission appointed to
liquidate claims and assess repayments due by Hayti; his special
knowledge of old fortunes in San Domingo, and the planters and their
heirs and assigns to whom the indemnities were due, had led to his
nomination. Gobseck's peculiar genius had then devised an agency for
Gobseck |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Manon Lescaut by Abbe Prevost: continue their progress without any distrust, and as we went
along I made my solicitations. They consulted together to
ascertain in what way they should entertain my request. The
chief of them spoke for the rest. He said that the orders they
had received to watch the prisoners vigilantly were of the
strictest kind; that, however, I seemed so interesting a young
man, that they might be induced to relax a little in their duty;
but that I must know, of course, that this would cost me
something. I had about sixteen pistoles left, and candidly told
them what my purse contained. `Well,' said the gendarme, `we
will act generously. It shall only cost you a crown an hour for
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: conditions behind it, is sometimes taken as an indication of the
inefficiency, and probably the ultimate failure, of the movement in which
she takes part. But in truth, that is not so. It is rather an indication
which shows how healthy, and deeply implanted in the substance of human
life, are the roots of this movement; and it places it in a line with all
those vast controlling movements which have in the course of the ages
reorganised human life.
For those great movements which have permanently modified the condition of
humanity have never taken their rise amid the chopped logic of schools;
they have never drawn their vitality from a series of purely intellectual
and abstract inductions. They have arisen always through the action of
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